Event Description
CLAS is pleased to announce that our in-person CineLatino screenings will include film talks with the directors this spring!
After the screening, director Paz Encina will be in conversation with Natalia Brizuela.
Synopsis
Eami means “forest” in Ayoreo. It also means “world.” The Indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people do not make a distinction: the trees, animals, and plants that have surrounded them for centuries are all that they know. They now live in an area experiencing the fastest deforestation on the planet. Paraguayan director Paz Encina traveled to the Paraguayan Chaco for this film. She immersed herself in Ayoreo-Totobiegosode mythology and listened to heartrending stories about how the people are being chased off their land. Based on the knowledge she acquired, she made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a little girl called Eami. After her village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She is the bird god—she explains in the poetic voice-over, in her own language—looking for whoever may be left. . . . Eami is an indictment yet, perhaps even more so, an attempt to record something that may be lost. 93 minutes. Ayoreo, Guaraní, and Spanish with English subtitles.
Speakers
Paz Encina is a Paraguayan director and screenwriter. Encina has directed numerous short films and created various video installations. Her works have been screened at venues such as the Harvard Film Archives, the BAMFA / Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, and the MOMA in New York. Along with being the first Paraguayan director to be part of the Hollywood Film Academy, Encina has received the Prince Claus Award, the FIPRESCI Prize at the Festival de Cannes, and the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Natalia Brizuela is the CLAS Chair and Professor in the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley.
Winner - Tiger Award - Rotterdam Film Festival.